The Genius and the Muse

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Kate caught a glint of silver from the corner of her eye as the light hit the sari again. She turned toward him and cocked her head. “Can I ask how you know Dee? She said it wasn’t a secret or anything—it just wasn’t her story to tell.”

  “Oh, sure.” He walked toward the wall that held the sari. “No, it’s not a secret. My mom was a hippie,” he said with a small smile and an embarrassed shrug. “She was backpacking through India when she met my dad, who was some rich kid from Europe on holiday. They had a very short-lived affair, and she got knocked up.”

  Kate looked at him with a gaping mouth, and he chuckled ruefully. “Romantic, right? Anyway, he took off, and she didn’t have enough money to get home, so she was stuck. Dee’s grandmother, Dr. Mehra…” He nodded toward the photograph of the three women, “was the doctor at the clinic she went to, and she felt sorry for her. My mom didn’t want to go back to the States, so she hired her to work in the house and stuff. So that’s where I grew up. Dee and I were about the same age, so we played a lot, even though I was the neighborhood oddity. They’re wonderful people, the Mehras. My mother became a nurse; she still takes care of Dr. Mehra. We moved to California with them when I was fifteen.”

  “That must have been an adjustment.”

  His laugh cracked the still air. “I was so relieved. Try to imagine being the tall American kid growing up in southern India.” Kate laughed at the horrified expression on his face. “I always stood out like a sore thumb. Hated it. I still hate being the center of attention.” He looked at the photograph again with a fond smile. “Dr. Mehra gave me my first camera when I was six. Wonderful woman.”

  He turned and walked toward the kitchen and Kate followed after him.

  “Mr. O’Connor—”

  “You can call me Reed,” he said, smiling at her. “Mr. O’Connor seems a little formal at this point, Kate.”

  Kate stood speechless, suddenly realizing how awkward it was to stand in front of someone she had been studying for the past few months like a science experiment.

  “Reed… I hope you aren’t offended by what I said in Lydia’s office. I don’t know why I’m so curious about your life, I just am.” She struggled to explain, “There’s a portrait in the alumni gallery. Everyone calls it one of your early ‘O’Connor portraits,’ but it’s not—not really. It’s just a picture of a hand—your hand, I think—on a shoulder, and I’ve studied that picture for so many hours! Do you even remember the one I’m talking about?” She looked at him with pleading eyes.

  A flash of raw pain crossed his face. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Yes, I remember that one. I don’t even know how the college got it.”

  “It’s different, and it’s always stuck with me,” she said quietly. “I just—I guess it was always a mystery to me. Was that your hand? Who was the model? Was it her?” Kate held her breath. “Was it Sam?”

  Reed trained his intense blue eyes on her. “You have a good eye. Javi was right. You have a good eye.” He cleared his throat before he continued. “Yes, that portrait was special. And yes, that was my hand on Sam’s shoulder.”

  Kate exhaled in relief, and a strange sort of satisfaction flooded her body, but tears came to her eyes as she looked at the dark-haired man standing in front of her, staring again at the painting of the solitary cabin. She had seen glimpses of the playful man Dee spoke of, and the moody artist Javi warned her about. She saw the lover that Vanessa had spoken of, but mostly, Kate saw a man in pain. Mustering her courage, she asked the question that had plagued her for months.

  “Reed, what really happened to you and Sam?”

  He stared at the painting for a few more moments before he glanced over at her and motioned toward the scarred wooden table in the kitchen area. He grabbed two bottles of water from the counter and handed one to her before he sat down. She followed him as he cracked it open, taking a long swallow before he cocked his head at her. She suddenly felt the strange focus so many others had talked about, trained intently on her, and she began to squirm.

  Reed started speaking a couple of times, stopping each time before words could escape. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to be patient. Finally, he asked an unexpected question. “Do you dream a lot, Kate?”

  “What?” She blinked. “Do I dream?” He nodded, so she continued, “Yeah, of course I dream. Maybe not every night, but fairly often.”

  He looked at her with haunted eyes and a wistful smile. “I dream. From the moment I met her, I have dreamt about Samantha Rhodes every night.”

  “What?”

  Reed nodded slowly. “Every night. Weeks before I even kissed her, I dreamt that we were lovers. Then after we were, I would dream of us together like that, or just… anything, really. Talking. Joking. Working.”

  “That’s…”

  “Kind of different, I know.”

  “Yeah.”

  She sat across from him and took a sip of water as he stared at the table. “Do you still dream about her like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You dream about the woman you broke up with four years ago every night?”

  A smile ghosted around his mouth.

  She felt like she had to ask. “Reed, are you mentally ill?”

  He laughed sharply and ran his fingers through his short hair, tugging it in a nervous gesture. “No, but I’m really irritable a lot of days.”

  “Yeah, no kidding.”

  He just chuckled and shook his head again. “Ask me if I mind.”

  Kate knew the answer, but asked anyway. “Do you mind dreaming about Sam every night?”

  He shook his head, smiling sadly before he spoke again. “Samantha Rhodes”—He paused thoughtfully—“is the love of my life. My muse. My partner. She’s necessary to me. Even if it’s only in dreams. There was something about the way she made me look at the world and, maybe more important, myself that allowed me to focus all that energy I always felt buzzing around my brain. She… made the difference for me. The difference between being good and being great.” He looked around the studio. “None of this would have been possible without her loving me.”

  Kate sat speechless, stunned silent by his words.

  “And she did love me,” Reed murmured. “And I loved her. Very much. I still love her. I’ll always love her.” He shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Then why?” Kate shook her head. “Why aren’t you together?”

  He looked at her, the pain pouring out of his eyes. “Things happen, Kate. Mistakes get made… and bridges—even really strong ones—can burn.”

  He looked down at the table, tapping a finger thoughtfully and frowning at the dark wood grain.

  “I imagine you found Brandon Wylie.” His voice barely rose above a whisper. “Vanessa called and told me she gave you his name.” He laughed bitterly. “I think she felt guilty, like she told you a secret or something.”

  “Yeah, I talked to him.”

  He nodded. “So you know. What I did, I mean. Which is fine. I don’t mind you knowing, for some reason.” He paused and rubbed his jaw nervously. “I messed up really bad, Kate; I hurt Sam at a time when she needed me—” He had to stop and clear his throat before he continued. “She needed me to be there for her, and I wasn’t. How can I ask her to forgive me for something like that?” He shook his head, finally looking up at her. She thought she might have seen tears in his eyes.

  “Have you asked her? To forgive you?”

  Reed frowned and looked down at his hands, which were knit together in his lap. “I used to call her. Every day for a while, wanting to talk. To apologize. She never picked up the phone, so I finally started leaving these really long, rambling messages on her answering machine.”

  He paused before he continued quietly. “I told her I was sorry. I told her about… about what I was doing, or people we knew here. Stuff I saw in the city. I was still trying to be sort of social at that point. For her. She always said I’d be a hermit if she didn't drag me out of the stu
dio.” He smiled. “She was right, I guess.”

  “That you became a hermit?”

  Reed shrugged. “Yes. Aren’t I?”

  He looked down at his hands again, twisting them nervously. “I got frustrated eventually, maybe six months or so after she left?” He looked up and out the bright windows.

  “I was angry that she wouldn't talk to me. Angry that she seemed willing to throw away what we had, everything we’d been through. And, I have a pretty bad temper sometimes. We both do,” he muttered under his breath. “And we can both be really stubborn. She still never called me back, no matter what I said. I guess I wasn't expecting her to at that point.”

  Kate saw him shake his head, but he continued speaking in a low voice.

  “I started dating random people. Stupid girls who thought I was glamorous or some shit like that. I think I was hoping she'd have a reaction, get pissed off or something. She never did. Javi did! He got so pissed, he didn’t talk to me for about eight months, but Sam…”

  Reed pointed toward the painting of the cabin on the lake. “She sent that to me for my birthday that spring. I didn't call her again after that. I knew she wasn’t coming back at that point. I still checked in with Susan for a while, just to make sure she was okay, but I figured—I figure she wanted to move on with her life.”

  “Why… I mean, do you know why—”

  “There were just too many memories here, I think.” He took a deep breath. “Too much history. But she still sends me a painting every now and then. I like getting them.”

  “The landscapes?” Kate asked.

  He nodded. “She used to paint me, you know? She had so many canvases of me.” He smiled. “I used to pretend it bugged me sometimes, sitting for her, but really I loved it. I loved to see her put all that focus on me. She's so talented. She only paints landscapes now. Beautiful stuff. Just gorgeous. I mean, her use of light—” Reed stopped himself, shaking his head and smiling a little. “Yeah, not really what we were talking about…”

  Kate smiled at his enthusiasm over his former lover’s work.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “her portrait work was even better than her landscapes. The way she would capture the subtlety of expression on a subject’s face. Her work was stunning. She was extraordinary. She still is.” He looked into the distance, staring out the windows of the studio again.

  “I’ve never seen any of her portrait work,” Kate offered. “I saw some sketches she did, though. They’re hanging up in the alumni gallery now. Just anatomy studies… but they're really good,” she added quickly.

  “They’re probably of me.” He smiled slowly. “Anatomy, huh?”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Not that kind of anatomy!”

  Reed chuckled. “Well, she did a lot of those too, you know.”

  “Such a guy.”

  He continued to laugh and crossed his arms over his chest. “So prudish, Kate. Haven’t you ever wanted to take pictures of someone? Pictures of everything?” He cocked an eyebrow at her, and his smile was devilish. “That’s half the fun of being an artist, you know? You get to call naked pictures ‘nudes’ and act intellectual about them.”

  “You know, it’s always the good-looking male photographers who have girls falling all over them. They’re the ones who do the nudes.”

  “I never claimed different,” he said. “Oh, wait… I know what you should do.”

  “Oh yeah? Enlighten me, genius.”

  “A series on tattoos. I heard you might be inspired.”

  Reed grinned at her blush, but Kate just shook her head and flipped him off as he laughed harder. Slowly, the tension drained out of the room and before she knew it, they were both laughing.

  They started trading stories about the more pretentious aspects of the art world. Reed told Kate about what portraits he was working on, and he asked her in detail about the self-portrait series she was shooting in Javi’s warehouse.

  “You’re brave,” Reed admitted. “Braver than me. I’ve never had the guts to put myself in front of the camera.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t really feel all that brave. It’s just necessary for me. At least it is right now. I’m happy with how they’re turning out. And I’m so grateful that Javi is letting me use his studio.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, I mean—” Kate couldn’t help the blush that colored her face again when she thought about the sculptor. “I know he’s really private. I was surprised he let me in his studio at all, much less to take pictures there. I never thought he’d say yes when I asked.”

  Reed raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “I’m not going to lie, it’s unusual for him. He must think a lot of you.” A small smile flickered around his mouth.

  Her blush only grew. “That’s good to hear. I mean, he’s a great artist. His vision for his work, and then his craftsmanship, too. So, you know, it’s gratifying to hear he thinks so much of my work. And he recommended me to Lydia, I guess, which is just —” She shook her head. “Amazing, you know?”

  Reed let her ramble, a smile continuing to ghost around his lips. “Javi’s one of my best friends. Probably my best friend, other than Sam.”

  “Yeah?”

  He nodded and leaned forward over the table. “So, Kate, I have to tell you—and you can take this however you like—I’ve never seen Javi share his space with anyone before. Not me. Not Vanessa. No one.”

  Kate’s heart raced. “No one?”

  “Never.”

  Reed leaned back in his chair, a slight smile still dancing on his lips. He watched her silently, and she tried to get her blush under control, but she couldn’t help but think about Javi’s brusque demeanor around the warehouse, and the heat she sensed in his eyes when she caught him watching her.

  “He thinks I’m a kid,” Kate said quietly.

  Reed frowned. “Do you think he’d let a kid use his workspace? Do you think he’d respect a kid enough for that?”

  Her mind raced with the possibilities of what he was saying, but she couldn’t quite wrap her brain around the implications. She cleared her throat and tried to play it off. “Oh, he might share his studio with a kid, if the kid could fetch beer, cigarettes, and tacos fast enough.”

  Reed’s face split into a grin before he burst into laughter.

  “Kate,” he finally said, still laughing a little. “I’m really glad I met you.”

  “Me, too.”

  She liked him. Once you got past the sadness that seemed to hang around his tall shoulders, Reed O’Connor exhibited a great sense of humor, a fierce passion about his art, and an obvious affection and loyalty for his friends.

  “Why does everyone say you’re such an asshole?” she finally asked after another round of crazy photo shoot stories. “Brandon Wylie talks about you like you're a total creep.”

  He snorted. “Wylie… I'd like to think that's more a reflection on him than me. Though admittedly, I wasn't very nice to him. The asshole part? I’ve been told that I’m very… focused when I’m working; I'm sure I'm getting worse in my old age.” He smirked a little. “Plus, I’m loaded now, which means I can tell everyone to fuck off if they don’t like my stuff.”

  He shrugged again. “I think celebrities think too much of themselves. I enjoy examining them. Sometimes, they really are quite beautiful, but often, their beauty is so fake. Like a thin layer of snow over a dirty street. I have no interest in taking a picture of the same nose sculpted by the same surgeon on five different actresses. It’s boring and more than a little insulting, if you think about it. Like they know better than we do what beauty is.”

  “I’d never thought about it like that before.”

  From there, Kate and Reed launched into a discussion of his work and how it related to her thesis project. He agreed to allow her to use some quotes in her published thesis, for which she was flattered and very grateful.

  “Reed.” Kate paused, finally getting up the courage to ask what had been on her mind for hours. “Do you still have any pict
ures of Sam?”

  He smiled. “Of course. Would you like to see some?”

  “Very much.”

  Reed stood and motioned her toward the walled-off area of the studio. Turning the corner, she saw a small living area containing a couch, a neatly made bed pushed into a corner, and bookcases which lined two of the walls. On the other two walls were picture after picture of Samantha Rhodes.

  Some were art pieces, dramatically lit and processed, featuring O’Connor’s distinctive abstract style. They were stunning, and Kate recognized a few of them she had seen in exhibits and others that had been published. The rest were candid shots—all showing Sam’s face—where the blond woman was laughing, working, or often just looking into the camera with a soft smile and a warm look in her brown eyes. There were color prints and black and whites, and all of them captured her beauty in different ways.

  Kate noticed an abstract canvas highlighted in the center of one wall. Upon closer inspection, she realized that it wasn’t abstract, just unfinished. She stared at it, finally recognizing the familiar lines and angles of the picture Dee had taken of them in college. Sam must have started it, but left it unfinished for some reason.

  “Do you still have the picture? The one Dee took?” Kate asked softly, as she went to stand in front of the unfinished canvas.

  Reed stood next to her, his right hand gripping his short hair, and the other hanging limply at his side as he stared at the unfinished oil painting.

  “No,” he whispered. “I was so stupid. After the fight—after she left and she ripped up all her canvases, I lost it. I tore up all the prints I had of her. I tore up that picture without thinking.” He sighed deeply as he looked at the painting. “So stupid. I could reprint all the ones I had taken, but I didn’t have the negative for that one.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Dee for another copy?”

  “I didn’t really deserve another copy, did I? This is all I have left. It’s not complete, but I love it.”

  Kate looked at him and tears threatened her eyes when she saw the sadness and resignation on Reed’s face. She reached over and took his hand, squeezing his fingers in her own, and she felt him squeeze back lightly.